Hello and welcome back, everyone! Today, I am challenging myself to a no-demo renovation of this bathroom in my upstairs hallway.
This bathroom was self-built in the 90s by the previous homeowner, and believe it or not, there used to be a saloon door in here between the vanity and the shower and toilet in the back. This room is super dated, and that brown wall color needs to go. But don't worry, I have some good ideas!
Painting the Walls
We're going to start with painting, so I'm removing all the outlet covers first to make sure I get a seamless line behind them. Then I'm going to start going across all the walls with Sherwin William's "Anew Gray."
Now, I've taken to picking colors from the same color strip within the Sherwin-Williams color system. This is a really easy way to get cohesiveness throughout your house without having redundant colors everywhere. Back when I first bought this house, I chose "Agreeable Gray," which is the lighter version of this, to paint throughout my living room and main area. It's a warm greige and it worked well in my space because I have a lot of warm tones and woods throughout my home.
For this bathroom, I wanted something a bit different. I wanted to go a little bit darker, so I just grabbed that same color strip and went a few shades down. Keep in mind, you actually don't need to buy these shades at Sherwin-Williams. I know their paint can be a bit expensive, so you can just take your color name right to Home Depot or Lowe's, and they can get that color match for you.
Correcting Paint Issues with Color Theory
Something else I'm considering as I was designing this bathroom was the difference between cool tones and warm tones in color theory. Like I just said, I have a lot of warm tones throughout my house, and even in this room, I'm working with warm, yellowish fiberglass on my sink, as well as the brown floor tiles.
This gray wall color is quite warm in shade, but in comparison to the very yellowed trim color, it's currently looking a little bit purple. That's okay, and this is going to clean up well when I put some white paint on this very yellowed trim as well as change the lights out for a cooler shade.
Lighting has a massive effect on the wall color! I like 4000k as my light choice throughout my house. It's right in the middle of the road, not too yellow, not too cool blue.
Once those are changed, we see the wall color through a plain white light rather than the warm yellow light, which neutralizes the purples in the gray. Color theory is kind of a tricky thing, but when you get everything all in the same state either cool or warm, you can create a lot of harmony.
Trim, Door & Medicine Cabinet Paint
Alright, speaking of trim, that's the next thing I'm going to tackle, which includes medicine cabinet shelves on either side of the sink, as well as a linen closet behind the door.
I'm going to take all the cabinet doors off of this to be painted separately, and then clean and sand all the high-touch surfaces to ensure I get a good adherence. When I took these doors out, let me tell you, they were Chip City. And this is why good prep is so important if you're going to put in the work to paint cabinets or anything like that. Just make sure that the paint job of whoever came before you isn't going to get in your way.
For paint, we're going to follow a similar method to what I did for my kitchen cabinets, which I did a lot of research into, and it gives a very durable finish. Not all paint is created equal, and this combination is certainly a winner.
It starts with a layer of Zinsser Bin Shellac Primer, which is an oil-based primer. It's a bit messy to use and you cannot clean it up with soap and water, which is why an aerosol can is a good go-to, or you can use a foam brush that you can discard after painting.
Once that's all dried, I'm following up with Sherwin-Williams Emerald Urethane Trim Enamel, which is their high-performance cabinet paint. This is where you need the really good stuff directly from the Sherwin-Williams store. My go-to trim color is Sherwin Williams Pure White, which is again on the warmer side of white but still nice, bright, crisp, and clean.
I'm applying the paint directly with a roller, and it's very easy. This product has a great self-leveling property, so you just need to watch for drips, and you'll get great coverage with one or two coats.
I recommend checking out the kitchen video I did for more about this painting process and how to get a finish that's going to last.
Also, side note, check out my super cool painting pants! I made these entirely for fun. They're just embroidered and say "painting pants" because I wanted something that I could get dirty and messy during all of my paint jobs.
While everything's drying, let's head back inside to paint the door as well as our regular trim. Once everything is dry, we can reassemble the medicine cabinets. We added simple silver bar pulls to match with the rest of the hardware throughout the room.
Vanity Paint
Moving on to our vanity, and guess what? It's time to repeat the process. This time my color of choice will be Black Fox by Sherman Williams, which is a warmer, lighter black. Essentially, it's just a really, really dark brown.
While we're doing that, let me talk to you about no-demo renos. As much as I'd love to gut and start over in this bathroom entirely, that would mean moving walls which affects other rooms, which leads me to a whole reconfiguration of the top floor of my house. If you're a homeowner, I'm sure you might have situations like this where just one project seems so unapproachable because it's so huge.
I'm just not in a season of life where I'm able to do that much work or spend that much money.
I've also come to realize that a no-demo reno can be done in a weekend and can breathe a lot of life back into your space. I know it's counterintuitive, but I'm finding more and more that it's well worth the time and money to live comfortably and happily while I'm saving up for that big renovation.
Alright, back to the vanity. We reassembled this with the same silver handles, and this color is looking so much better. And because it's that dark pop, it makes the vanity a focal point in this room, anchoring it in a way it didn't have before.
Hardware & Electrical
I might have lied because we do have one bit of demo to do, which is removing this sliding glass door from the shower. Fortunately, this is easy. It is in decent shape, but it dates the space, as well as closes up this tiny back room. So, we decided it had to go.
Once we took it off, we did notice it left a yellow stain along the tub. I attempted to clean that up, but I knew from the start there wasn't a way that it was going to come out easily. So, as a little cheat, I grabbed a strip of waterproof caulking tape to cover it up. This is not a perfect solution, but it looks really good visually. It sticks well, even when wet, and it'll be good enough for now until I think of something else.
After that, I caulked over everything, as well as filled the holes left behind by the shower door. Then I got started on installing a new brushed nickel curved shower curtain rod and hung a beautiful woven black curtain that matches my vanity.
Above the toilet, I'm going to install a little wood shelf that I got from Goodwill for $3. Lastly, we replaced all of our switches with nice bright white Decora paddle switches, as well as upgraded this old panel for our fan to a nice auto-off timer. And then we're ready for the final reveal!
The Reveal
Never underestimate the power of some paint! This place has gone from dingy, unrefined 90s to modern and clean, and honestly, it was really not that hard. I should have done this so long ago.
The best part? All in, it was about $150. Here's that breakdown of what we spent.
I'd love to hear what you think of this project. I'll see you next time!